State of Grace  (1990)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: D     Film: A-

 

 

As Previously discussed in our Miller’s Crossing review, 1990 was a watershed year for great Gangster genre films, and another one of the remarkable films made that year was Phil Joanou’s State of Grace.  It went unnoticed because Orion Pictures, the original producing studio, just started to get into some financial trouble.  As a result, it only got a limited release and never got the credit it deserved.

 

It was the only films of that group set in the modern day besides the remarkable The Grifters, but is not as stylish.  It has its own style, but is grittier.  Set in Hell’s Kitchen, it follows the return of Terry (Sean Penn, in one of the greatest performances he will ever give) to his old neighborhood.  Things have changed, which he notices in what of his old neighborhood has been wiped out in the name of “urban redevelopment” and greed, but that is only the beginning.  He visits his friend Jackie (one of Gary Oldman’s most incredible performances), who is a wild man, and discovers that his brother Frankie (Ed Harris) is the new head of the Irish Mob.

 

If that’s not enough, his hidden feelings for their sister (Robin Wright in the film she met Penn on) slowly resurface in unexpected ways.  Add complicated business with the old school Italian Mafiosos, and other police corruption, and this will all boil into an unforgettable showdown on St. Patrick’s Day.

 

That is even an oversimplification of how rich Dennis McIntyre’s screenplay is, or how deep the performances of the cast are, which also happens to include two more of our greatest actors: John Turturro and John C. Reilly.  There are other familiar faces too, but we’ll leave them a surprise.

 

Big credit should also be given to director Joanou, who does the greatest work of his career here to date.  He began in music videos, then did a music film, the awkward U2 - Rattle & Hum from 1988.  No one was more stunned than this critic when he pulled this film off.  He went for the more commercial Final Analysis (1992) and Heaven’s Prisoners (1996) were both also thrillers, but no match for this film by a longshot.  Too bad, because this is a talented filmmaker who really shines, when given the right circumstances and materials.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is the best this film has looked on home video to date.  This is also its debut widescreen, as the VHS tapes and LaserDisc had both been issued full screen only.  It is still not as detailed as it should be, but this is much closer to the striking camerawork by the late great Jordan Cronenweth, A.S.C, who is best known for his classic work on Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982).  A master cinematographer, I would be bold enough to say that this might just be his second greatest achievement on celluloid, despite uncanny images in films like Robert Altman’s Brewster McCloud (1970), Ken Russell’s Altered States (1980), Francis Coppola’s Gardens of Stone (1987), Jonathan Demme’s Stop Making Sense (1984) and the first two Joanou films noted in the prior paragraph.

 

On the other hand, the new 5.1 sound mix may have its moments, but seems to lack base, which reminded me of another Orion film around the same time that was also issued in Dolby SR surround 4.1 originally.  That film is The Silence of the Lambs, and like this film, the 5.1 remix clarifies a few points, but at too huge a cost of lost base!  It is even worse here than in Silence.  I do not know what M-G-M did to the soundtracks of both films, but SR films in general usually get maimed when a 5.1 conversion is done by anybody.  Unlike Silence, this film was never issued by Criterion, and this DVD only offers a trailer.  You can read about both Silence DVDs elsewhere on the site.

 

That SR sounded best on the old LaserDisc, which brings us to another spectacular aspect of the film: its brilliant score by none other than Ennio Morricone.  This music, both the narrative music and ethnic Irish song, is one of his greatest achievements.  The composing master adds to the many layers of atmosphere already present in the film.  Because it did not take off like it should have, shades of the score are all over the more commercially successful Barry Levinson Gangster film Bugsy (1991) with Warren Beatty.  A fine CD was issued for State of Grace by MCA Records, and the company ought to consider issuing it in the new high-definition Super Audio CD and DVD-Audio formats as soon as they could, because a score this incredible would become a instant demo disc for both formats.

 

The film runs about 2 hours, 15 minutes, and NEVER gets uninteresting.  It is simply one of those films where so much went right artistically and now it is an undiscovered gem that may finally be discovered once and for all.  Those who are going after the new DVD of Brian De Palma’s 1983 tour-de-force Scarface should explicitly grab a copy of this while they are at it!

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo